Most of us spend our lives seeking the natural world. To this end, we walk the dog, play golf, go fishing, sit in the garden, drink outside rather than inside the pub, have a picnic, live in the suburbs, go to the seaside, buy a weekend place in the country. The most popular free time activity in Britain is going for a walk. And when joggers (慢跑者) jog, they don’t run the streets. Every one of them automatical
ly heads to the park or the river. It is my firm belief that not only do we all need nature, but we all seek nature, whether we know we are doing so or not.
But despite this, our children are growing up nature-deprived (喪失). I spent my boyhood climbing trees. These days, children are robbed of these ancient freedoms, due to problems like crime, traffic, the loss of the open spaces and strange new ideas about what is best for children, that is to say, things that can be bought, rather than things that can be found.
The truth is to be found elsewhere. A study in the US: families had moved to better housing and the children were assessed for ADHD (多動癥). Those whose housing had more natural views showed an improvement of 19%; those who had the same improvement in material surroundings but no nice view improved just 4%.
A study in Sweden indicated that kindergarten children who could play in a natural environment had less illness and greater physical ability than children used only to a normal playground. A US study suggested that when a school gave children access to a natural environment, the entire school would do better in studies.
Another study found that children play differently in a natural environment. In playgrounds, children create a hierarchy (等級) based on physical abilities, with the tough ones taking the lead. But when a grassy area was planted with bushes, the children got much more into fantasy play, and the social hierarc
hy was now based on imagination and creativity.
Most bullying (恃強凌弱) is found in schools w
here there is a tarmac (柏油碎石) playground; the least bullying is in a natural area that the children are encouraged to explore. This reminds me unpleasantly of Sunnyhill School, with its hard tarmac, where I used to hang about in corners dreaming about wildlife.
But children are frequently discouraged from involvement with natural spaces, for health and safety reasons, for fear that they might get dirty or that they might cause damage. So, instead, the damage is done to the children themselves: not to their bodies but to their souls.
One of the great problems of modern childhood is ADHD, now increasingly and expensively treated with drugs. Yet one study after another indicates that contact with nature gives huge benefits to ADHD children. However, we spend money on drugs rather than on green places.
The life of old people is much better when they have access to nature. The most important for the growing population of old people is in quality rather than quantity of years. And study after study finds that a garden is the single most important thing in finding that quality.
In wider and more difficult areas of life, there is evidence to indicate that natural surroundings improve all kinds of things. Even problems with crime and aggressive behaviour are reduced when there is contact with the natural world.
Dr William Bird, researcher from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, states in his study, “A natural environment can reduce violent behaviour because its process helps reduce anger and behavior that people might regret later.” Wild places need encouraging for this reason
, no matter how small their contribution.
We tend to think human beings are doing nature some kind of favor when we are protecting nature. The error here is far too deep: not only do humans need nature for themselves, but the very idea that humanity and the natural world are separable things is damaging.
Human beings are a species of animals. For seven million years we lived on the planet as part of nature. So we miss the natural world and long for contact with non-human life. Anyone who has patted a dog, stroked a cat, sat under a tree with a glass of beer, given or received a bunch of flowers or chosen to walk through the park on a nice day, understands that.
We need the wild world.
It is necessary to our well-being, our health, our happiness. Without other living things around us we are less than human.
【小題1】What is the author’s firm belief?
| A．People seek nature in different ways. |
| B．People should spend most of their lives in the wild. |
| C．People have quite different ideas of nature. |
| D．People must make more efforts to study nature. |
| A．Personal freedom. | B．Things that are natural. |
| C．Urban surroundings. | D．Things that are purchased. |
| A．tend to develop a strong love for science |
| B．are more likely to dream about wildlife |
| C．tend to be physically tougher in adulthood |
| D．are less likely to be involved in bullying |
| A．Find more effective drugs for them. |
B．Provide more green spaces for them. |
| C．Place them under more personal care. |
| D．Engage them in more meaningful activities |
A．They lo ok on life optimistically. | B．They enjoy a life of better quality. |
| C．They are able to live longer. | D．T hey become good-humored |
閱讀快車系列答案科目：高中英語 來源：2016屆河北省高一上學期二調考試英語試卷（解析版） 題型：完型填空
When we read books we seem to enter a new world. This new world can be similar to the one we are living in, or it can be very . Some stories are told they were true. Real people who live in a world do real things; in other words, the stories are about people just like us doing what we do. Other stories, such as the Harry Potter books, are not . They are characters and creatures that are very different from us and do things that would be for us.
But there is more to books and writing than this. If we think about it, even realistic writing is only . How can we tell the difference between what is real and what is not real? For example, when we read about Harry Potter, we seem to learn something about the real world. And when Harry studies magic at Hogwarts, he also learns more about his real life than . Reading, like writing, is an action. It is a way of . When we read or write something, we do much more than simple look at words on a page. We use our -- which is real-- and our imagination-- which is real in a different way --- to make the words come to life in our minds. www.zxxk.com
Both realism and fantasy(幻想) the imagination and the “magic” of reading and writing to make us think. When we read realistic, we have to imagine that the people we are reading about are just like us, even though we that we are real and they are . It sounds , but it works. When we read, we fill in missing information and about the causes and effects of what a character does. We help the writer by 52 that what we read is like real life. In a way, we are writing the book, too.
Most of us probably don’t think about what is going on in our when we are reading. We pick up a book and lose in a good story, eager to find out what will happen next. Knowing how we feel we read can help us become better readers, and it will help us discover more about the real magic of books.
1.A. possible B. easy C. new D. different
2.A. that B. what C. whether D. as if
3.A. usual B. normal C. certain D. common
4.A. realistic B. reasonable C. moral D. instructive
5.A. difficult B. impossible C. important D. necessary
6.A. thinkable B. designed C. imagined D. planned
7.A. do B. make C. have D. are
8.A. lessons B. dreams C. experience D. magic
9.A. working B. thinking C. living D. understanding
10.A. knowledge B. skill C. words D. grammar
11.A. make B. get C. use D. have
12.A. a newspaper B. something C. everything D. a story
13.A. find B. learn C. know D. hope
14.A. too B. not C. all D. so
15.A. dangerous B. serious C. strange D. terrible
16.A. talk B. learn C. read D. think
17.A. telling B. pretending C. promising D. guessing
18.A. mind B. life C. world D. society
19.A. heart B. time C. money D. ourselves
20.A. what B. how C. when D. why
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科目：高中英語 來源：2015屆四川成都南片區六校聯考高二上學期期中考試英語試卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解
Cast your mind back to the past twenty years and hardly did anyone have their own email account. The Internet had just taken off in 1991 and people were only using office and PCbased email exchanges.
In the mid 1990s external email providers appeared. The most famous of these was Hotmail, the first free email provider and webbased email service. Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail on July 4, 1996. And Microsoft took note of and bought Hotmail for $400 million on December 30, 1997, a nice birthday present for Bhatia who turned 29 that day. It was relaunched as MSN Hotmail and in 2007 was relaunched again as Windows Live Hotmail.
Fast forward the present day and most of us have at least a personal webbased email account. It seems impossible to live without them. One of the biggest advantages of email is the fact that communication has become so much easier, especially with those across different time zones. Email takes seconds to send a message whereas letters, as we used to communicate by, could take weeks. Of course there was the fax, that beeping invention from the 1980s, but it wasn’t as secure as email and you never knew if the person on the other end had picked up your fax or if it had got lost somewhere in the office.
In conclusion, one of the best inventions from the 1990s has to be email. But sometimes people are too closely connected to their email and have a compulsion to check it several times a day. At work, people have become lazy and instead of going to speak to the person sitting next to them, they send an email，causing an in box to pile up with more time spent reading email and responding rather than working. Clearly, an invention that saved time because of its quick and speedy connection can now also cause us to waste a lot of time.
1.The earliest web-based email came into being probably _______.
A. in 1991 B. in 1996 C. in 1997 D. in 2007
2.The author mentions “fax” in the third paragraph in order to tell us that _______.
A. it is exactly as good as email
B. it is much better than email
C. it is less convenient than email
D. it is easier and faster than email
3.The underlined word “compulsion” in Paragraph 4 probably means “_______”.
A. strong desire B. common sense C. special curiosity D. general idea
4.Which is the main idea of the last paragraph?
A. We should check email boxes frequently.
B. Lazy people like sending an email.
C. Email brings us great convenience.
D. Good inventions also cause problems.
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科目：高中英語 來源：2012-2013學年湖北省高三下學期第二次月考英語卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解
Shakespeare, more perhaps than any other writer, made full use of the greatest resources of the English Language．Most of us use about five thousand words in our normal employment of English; Shakespeare in his works used about twenty-five thousand! There is probably no better way for a foreigner to appreciate the richness and variety of the English language than by studying the various ways in which Shakespeare uses it．Such a study is well worth the effort, even though some aspects of English usage, and the meaning of many words, have changed since Shakespeare’s day．
However, it is surprising that we should know comparatively little about the life of the greatest English author．We know that Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon, and that he died there in 1616．He almost certainly attended the Grammar School in the town, but of this we cannot be sure．We know he was married there in 1582 to Anne Hathaway and that he had three children．We know that he spent much of his life in London writing his masterpieces．But this is almost all that we do know．
However, what is important about Shakespeare’s life is not its incidental details but its products, the plays and the poems．For many years scholars have been trying to add a few facts about Shakespeare’s life to the small number we already possess and for an equally long time critics have been theorizing about the plays．Sometimes, indeed, it seems that the poetry of Shakespeare will disappear under the great mass of comment that has been written upon it．
Fortunately this is not likely to happen．Shakespeare’s people have long delighted not just the English but lovers of literature everywhere, and will continue to do so after the scholars and critics and all their works have been forgotten．
1.This passage is about ．
A. the great length of each chapter
B. the great varieties in writing styles
C. the richness of the content in Shakespeare’s works
D. the rich English language used by Shakespeare in his works
2. According to the writer, which of the following remains uncertain about Shakespeare?
A. His date of birth
B. His marriage
C. His life in the Grammar School
D. His date of death
3.It can be inferred from Para 3 that
A. not all the comments on Shakespeare’s works have produced good effects
B. scholars have successfully collected facts about Shakespeare’s life
C. critics are more interested in Shakespeare’s play than his poetry
D. the details of Shakespeare’s life are more important than his literary works
4. What does the last sentence in Para 3 mean ?
A. People don’t think the poetry of Shakespeare good any more．
B. People pay more attention to the comment than the poetry of Shakespeare．
C. People can’t see the poetry of Shakespeare any more．
D. The comment is printed on the poetry of Shakespeare．
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科目：高中英語 來源：2015屆陜西寶雞中學高一下期期末考試英語卷（解析版） 題型：填空題
Pay Attention to the Organization of an Article.
Check Your Understanding.
Lightning Speed Exercise
Set Aside Time Each Day.
Check Your Progress through Pacing
Speed up When Necessary.
1.______
Most of us can find 15 minutes or half an hour each day for some specific regular activity. For example, one famous surgeon always made it a rule to spend at least 15 minutes on general reading before he went to sleep each day. Whether he went to bed at 10 p.m. or 2:30 a.m. made no difference.
2.______
Nearly all ‘speed reading’ courses have a ‘pacing’ element---some timing device which lets the students know how many words a minutes he is reading. You can do this simply by looking at your watch every 5 or 10 minutes and noting down the page number you have reached.
3.______
Obviously there is little point in increasing your reading speed if you do not understand what you are reading. If you find you have lost the thread of the story, or you can’t remember clearly the details of what was said, re-read the section or chapter.
4.______
Take four or five pages of an interesting book you happen to be reading at the time. Read them as fast as you possibly can. Do not bother about whether you understand or not. After a ‘lightning speed’ of reading, you will usually find that your ‘normal’ speed has increased.
5.______
Most paragraphs in an article have a ‘topic sentence’ which expresses the central ideas. The opening paragraph often suggests the general direction and content of the piece, while paragraphs that follow expand or support the first. The closing paragraph often summarizes the very essence(實質) of what has been said.
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科目：高中英語 來源：2014屆浙江省紹興市高二下學期階段性考試英語試卷（解析版） 題型：單項填空
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is so ________that most of us can not understand it.
A．controversial B．abstract
C．appropriate D．universal
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